I am the proud, proud mother of identical twin boys. One is a firefighter, one is an EMT … I’m probably going to mention that again, soon. You’ve been warned.

My age similar friends are still dealing with parent-teacher interviews, early bed times, play dates and healthy snacks. I’m planning vacations, eating chocolate for dinner and swearing like a sailor.

Don’t hate.

How I got back to hiking:

When my boys were small we’d hike every weekend. My husband worked weekend night shift, I worked during the week … we didn’t see a lot of each other, but we didn’t have sitters either. I took them hiking to keep them out of the house while he slept.

The boys and I hiked and hiked. We hit many trails in the area over the years and loved it. Then things changed … they got jobs & lives of their own … the next thing you know there’s four adults with work schedules and school schedules to keep track of and I would just be grateful when we all ended up in the same place at the same time.

They graduated and moved out right away … we raised independent, self-sufficient adults … it’s the thing you’re supposed to do as a parent … but there’s something about succeeding at it that kind of sucks.

A weird series of events occurred (that included seriously damaging some back muscles) and next thing I knew it was a couple of years later and I had an “old back injury” and no kids at home to keep me moving.

It turns out crocheting doesn’t burn a lot of calories. I got fat and lazy … and I was in a lot of pain.

It was near the beginning of 2014 when Jason and I were going to the mall … as usual he was about to park at the far end of the parking lot to stay away from errant grocery carts … I snapped at him about how hard it was for me to walk to the doors and had him drop me off.

I had become the person that got dropped off at the mall doors rather than walk the parking lot. I stood there, watching him park the car and realized I wasn’t even 40 yet … this was not sustainable.

I needed to do something.

So I contacted a friend, Jacqueline … we both struggled with our relative inactivity and we agreed to do 100 days of fitness together … for 100 consecutive days we met and did some sort of activity. I will always be grateful to her for that.

It worked.

I haven’t lost a lot of weight … I’m not skinny … I probably won’t ever be … but that same person that couldn’t walk across a parking lot now straps forty pounds on her back and walks more than twenty kilometres a day through the mountains.